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Syrian Forces Press Aleppo, Sending Thousands Fleeing

Syrian refugees near a crossing gate on the Turkish border on Friday. Tens of thousands of civilians were fleeing the Aleppo area.Credit
Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian government and allied forces pressed their most significant advance in months on Friday, sending insurgents scrambling and tens of thousands of civilians fleeing toward the border with Turkey.

The advance has accelerated in recent days, with new momentum from heavy Russian airstrikes in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Syrian state news media, residents and antigovernment activists. The government’s gains have given a morale boost to loyalists and prompted opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to calculate their next moves.

The government’s gains in Aleppo Province, building on earlier ones in Dara’a in the south and Latakia in the north, also scuttled United Nations-mediated peace talks this week in Geneva. Neither side saw much to discuss there: The government believed it was achieving its goals on the battlefield, while the opposition accused the Assad administration and Russia of using negotiations as a cover for indiscriminate attacks.

Russia’s four months of escalating military intervention have strengthened the government, allowing Mr. Assad’s forces to go on the offensive in several provinces at once for the first time in years. It remains to be seen whether the most recent advances will hold. But they have dealt major blows to the armed opposition and made crucial military gains around the divided city of Aleppo, the provincial capital that was once Syria’s largest city and industrial hub.

Government forces and pro-government militias, including the Lebanese group Hezbollah, have cut the main supply route for weapons and humanitarian aid north of the city. If the government and its allies advance farther south, they could surround rebels in Aleppo and employ the type of “starve or surrender” siege the government has used elsewhere.

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Syrians Flee Aleppo After Bombardment

After months of Russian airstrikes, thousands of Syrians have flocked to the Turkish border from the city of Aleppo.

Mr. Assad’s forces also broke the insurgents’ siege of two towns near Aleppo, Nubol and Zahra, which had survived on government airdrops of food. People there were celebrating on Friday and thanking the troops in videos posted on social media.

The government gains have increased the sense of alarm among antigovernment insurgents and their civilian supporters, sending thousands of people, including women and children with whatever they can carry, fleeing through orchards.

In one video posted on social media, a woman can be heard calling out: “Russia is bombing us, Iran is bombing us, Daesh” — another name for the Islamic State — “is bombing us. Where should we go?”

A man who said he was from Homs Province, several hundred miles to the south, said he had fled to one town after another in Aleppo Province, always chased by bombardments and shelling. “They killed my mother. They killed my father. They killed my brother,” he said. “Where are the Arabs? Where is Islam?”

The United Nations said 20,000 people were stuck at the border fence between Syria and Turkey, and aid groups said as many as 50,000 were expected. Turkish officials have said they will allow refugees to cross, but it was not clear when they would open the crossing or how many would be allowed through. A few people requiring urgent medical care are being taken to Turkish hospitals.

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A Syrian boy was comforted amid the rubble on Thursday after a what appeared to be an airstrike in a rebel-held neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria.Credit
Thaer Mohammed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The United Nations’ director of humanitarian operations, John Ging, told the Security Council on Friday that the situation around Aleppo, and the closing of an important border crossing with Turkey, could prevent food and medicine from reaching 325,000 people caught in the fighting, according to two diplomats who attended the closed meeting.

Opponents of Mr. Assad from the area under attack expressed anguish that the government advances had continued while talks were set to take place in Geneva. Yaser al-Hajj, an activist who has often helped foreign journalists in Aleppo, left the talks before they were halted when he heard of the intensifying attacks not far from his hometown, Marea.

“I cannot stay here,” he said at the airport in Geneva before he left. “Why is the United States letting this happen? They are letting Russia do whatever it wants. This will help the terrorists.”

Mr. Hajj was referring to fighters for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which he said would benefit from the losses suffered by rival insurgents. Russia has said it sees no distinction between the Islamic State and other insurgent groups.

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said the Obama administration was deeply concerned about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Aleppo.

Syrian Government Advances

The Syrian government has gained control of three key areas in recent months.

Al Bab

ISIS

CONTROL

Zahra

REBEL

CONTROL

Aleppo

Kuweires

Airbase

Areas of recent gains by

the Syrian government

Al-Safira

Area of

detail

GOVERNMENT

CONTROL

Syria

5 Miles

Zahra

Al Bab

ISIS

CONTROL

REBEL

CONTROL

Aleppo

Kuweires

Airbase

Areas of recent

gains by the Syrian

government

Area of

detail

GOVERNMENT

CONTROL

Syria

10 Miles

Source: Institute for the Study of War

FEB. 5, 2016

By The New York Times

“There’s the possibility that government forces backed by the Russians would encircle that city and essentially lay siege to that city, and that would obviously exacerbate a terrible humanitarian situation there,” Mr. Earnest said.

He also said Russia’s intensifying military campaign to support the Syrian government was delaying a political resolution to the war because it “gives the Assad regime less of an incentive to come to the negotiating table and act constructively in conversations there.”

After the Security Council meeting, the French ambassador, François Delattre, criticized Russia for its bombardments and said the Syrian opposition could not be expected to “negotiate with a gun to their head.” Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, responded that a broader cease-fire would be required. “We cannot stop this unilaterally,” he said.

The new advances are squeezing rebel groups north of Aleppo that have been holding off Islamic State militants, who want to expand into a coveted section of rebel-held territory near the Turkish border. Long controlled by United States-backed insurgents and hard-line Islamists, that strip of land is wanted by nearly every party to the conflict.

Kurdish militias want the area to connect two enclaves they control near the border to the east and west. That is where the United States and Turkey sought last year to create a “safe zone” for refugees, free of Islamic State fighters. That plan broke down when the two countries, NATO allies, disagreed on the details.

Photo

Displaced people moved toward the Turkish border Friday. The United Nations said 20,000 were stuck on the Syrian side.Credit
Depo Photos, via Associated Press

Turkey would be particularly troubled if the Kurds, whom it considers its main enemy in the area, further encroached on the border area.

It would be unusual, though, for Turkey to send in troops without consulting with the United States, even though their relationship has been strained by Turkey’s frustration that the United States is more focused on battling the Islamic State than Mr. Assad.

A Saudi official said on Wednesday that the kingdom would consider sending troops to Syria to fight the Islamic State, but it appeared he had spoken without consulting with regional allies, and it was not clear what kind of deployment he meant or where it would be.

In neighboring Idlib Province, west of Aleppo, insurgents were on alert for shortages and price increases because of the cut in the Aleppo supply road, according to an antigovernment activist in the area.

“Today, I wanted to buy salt,” said the activist, Mohammad Moataz. “The guy told me: Starting the middle of this month, no more salt. No cars are coming from Aleppo. The bakers couldn’t find salt for their bakeries.”

The blockade on the road will most likely force cargo to be rerouted through Idlib Province, where the territory around the border crossing with Turkey is controlled by the Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. That “will probably give the jihadists greater leverage” over other rebel groups, wrote Columb Strack, a senior analyst at IHS Country Risk.

Airstrikes and bombardments in the area may indicate that government forces plan on pressing south to cut the Idlib road as well and surround Aleppo.

“This would provide the government with substantial leverage to eventually negotiate over the future of the city from a position of strength,” Mr. Strack wrote, adding that residents of Aleppo “would probably face a humanitarian crisis, as already seen in other besieged towns such as Madaya, but on a much larger scale.”

Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad from Beirut; Maher Samaan from Paris; Ceylan Yeginsu from Izmir, Turkey; Somini Sengupta from the United Nations and Gardiner Harris from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on February 6, 2016, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Assad Forces Gain Momentum Around Aleppo. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe